


Sleep it off

by teskodanceparty



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always the Opposite Sex, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-27
Updated: 2012-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-31 17:40:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/346710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teskodanceparty/pseuds/teskodanceparty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he breathes it comes out in a slow little sigh, tickling the hair at the nape of her neck and it’s all together a little weird.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleep it off

Waking up with Captain America wrapped around her was not how Antonia Stark imagined she’d greet the day…really ever. But there he is, all warm limbs and bigger than a fucking mountain of man, legs and arms wrapped around her like an octopus and she’s kinda stuck.

She sleeps on her side, curled in on herself to ease the glow of her chest piece. Now Steve is pressed to her back, legs tangled with her own. His arm snakes up her chest, palm pressing lightly over the arc reactor whirring quietly through her heart, his other arm draped over her hip. When he breathes it comes out in a slow little sigh, tickling the hair at the nape of her neck and it’s all together a little weird. It reminds Toni that she needs a haircut, she’ll have to remind Pepper to shove her towards a stylist this time and not let give Dummy a chance to nearly cut her ear off again.

“Jarvis, you up?” she whispers and in her head she continues with _please be up, Jarvis I need you to be up and wonderful and as snarky as the day i sparked life into you because I think he’s waking up, come on Jarvis_. Instead of his usual reply, or even replying at all, he opens the windows to about 5%.

Steve is stirring, hand clutching and holding onto the arc reactor as he slowly comes awake and she would so prefer to be elsewhere. Seriously, waking up in a cave in the mountains of Afghanistan with a car battery jerry-rigged to her heart would be less awkward than this. For a brief second, barely perceptible but Toni notices these things because it’s kind of her fucking job, Steve’s grip on the only thing between her and an excruciating death is hard enough to bruise, and Toni freezes before his grip loosens.

“Toni?” he murmurs and, god isn’t that cute? his hair sticking up in every direction imaginable, the pattern of the sheet he’d pulled up under his face still pressed into his cheek.

“Morning big guy, had trouble sleeping?” She asks without really thinking because it just now occurred to her (a little later than usual, she doesn’t work well in the morning) that she’s very nearly naked under the sheets. But Steve is dressed in his pajamas, drawstring flannel and a well-fitting white t shirt. Hell, he’s probably even wearing socks. He runs a hand down his face, than back up, rubbing at his eyes. When his hands fall away his eyes are bright blue, as always, and awake.

The look on his face is the one that says he’s going to talk and she’s going to listen or he’ll threaten to bend her over his knee and not realize Toni is holding down laughter at the thought of Steve Rogers man handling her. Which, in her opinion, is better than letting him know she might actually like it if he did that.

“Yeah. I just-” he stammers a start, and Toni knows without him saying it. They’ve been friends long enough. She sits up, pulls her knees to her chest under the sheets between them and is comforted by the solid bump of metal against her thighs. It’s not Steve seeing her in her panties that bothers her; he’s seen it enough with her stripping out of the Mach-whatever-number-they’re-up-to-now-hey-she-should-update-the-gauntlets-a-little-before-breakfast. Toni doesn’t have a problem with nudity; if she did, having the Avengers move into Stark Tower would have been more of a problem than it already is.

“I get cold.” Steve finishes the thought finally and Toni nods. She knows it’s nothing to do with the actual temperature and more with that face that he spent 70 years under ice and, Christ that must have been terrifying. Toni doesn’t imagine it, can’t because she doesn’t know. She could tell him about having her heart blown to shit, how that weird glow thing in her chest is essentially keeping her from being a corpse but she doesn’t.

Its 5:30 in the morning. Toni hates being awake this early. For anything. Ever. And even though Steve should be half way through his morning run already, he’s here. Sitting at the foot of her bed, feet curled under him and shivering just enough for her to see it and it’s all Toni can do to stop herself from kissing that lost little boy look from his eyes. She’ll deny it if anyone says she has a soft spot for Steve. 

Thor is her favorite. Thor she likes and understands. She doesn’t argue with Thor, or get yelled at by him for coming in late, drunk, with other women’s lipstick smeared at her collar and her own wiped clean hours before. But this is Steve, and he’s here and he just looks so…Steve.

“Okay.” she says, shoves off the sheets and ignores the blush that runs down Steve’s neck as she stands to go to the closet. When she comes out carrying a pile of blankets he’s still pointedly not looking at her but that’s fine. She doesn’t need another person trying to analyze the arc reactor or trying to press cold fingers to the star burst of scars around it. She throws the blankets onto the bed, and hey Steve is standing out of the way and helping her make the bed up. Of course he is. He’s America’s biggest and possibly oldest Boy Scout.

Toni crawls back under the blankets, shivering just a little herself now because it’s fucking 5:30 in the morning and she hates being awake this early, really. Unless it’s because she’s just getting in and on her way to bed. But she gets under the covers; fold back the top at the other side of the bed.

“Come here Steve.” she says, not a request but he does as she says and when she pulls him back down, lets him maneuver her against him so that they’re laying almost exactly as they were when she woke, Toni doesn’t laugh. Well, yeah she does, but Steve is chuckling quietly against the back of her neck and before she falls back asleep she hears him tell Jarvis to cut the lights and snuggles in closer to her back. Okay, so maybe Steve is her favorite. Don’t tell Thor.


End file.
